Wes Dickinson (35) at Dwight-Englewood last season, is going Ivy League after Peddie.

Wes Dickinson is comfortable on the road less traveled.

The former Dwight-Englewood basketball star, now a postgraduate student at the Peddie School in Hightstown, has always had the courage to find his own path.

In a world where more and more student-athletes are held back a year to gain athletic advantage, Dickinson skipped first grade. When his first choice for a college, Yale, fell through, attending Peddie became the next best option. It would give him an extra year to grow as a human being and showcase his talents for an Ivy League school — his preferred destination.

Now with a commitment to Dartmouth given, the 6-foot-7 Dickinson, blessed with soft hands and springs in his legs, has his eyes set on the future.

Of course, the first thing you notice about Dickinson is his height, but that’s not even his best attribute. He’s smart. Very smart.

"Math was always my strong suit," Wes said. "Both of my parents are pretty smart. My mom always knew she wanted to do art; she went to Paris. And my dad skipped sixth to seventh grade. That was a big skip for him."

Wes is the only child of Mark and Theresa, who now live in Bergenfield. They both work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Wes was a frequent tag-along when they were at work.

Theresa remembers Wes writing books with his grandmother when he was 2; not reading — writing — books and carrying around a large blackboard in the house to do arithmetic.

"He just always has been a ferocious learner," Theresa said. "We would go to the library and there would be a limit on the number of books a child could check out, so Wes would have to give me some of his books so I could put them on my card."

Baseball was actually his first sport. He was a pitcher/first baseman until basketball became his primary love.

"We have a lot of home run balls from when he was younger," Theresa said. "We really hoped he could do both at Dwight, but because of AAU and high school basketball, that became all consuming."

Coming out of elementary school, Mark said Wes was contacted by all of the big non-public schools in North Jersey. The path was diverging again and Wes chose Dwight-Englewood.

"Everyone thought it would be a mistake," Mark said. "They said we were making a mistake for sending him there."

Dwight-Englewood has a remarkable academic reputation, but isn’t the first school that comes to mind when you think of Division I athletes.

In fact, Wes remembers that the boys basketball team was 2-19 the year before he got to Dwight-Englewood. Mark remembers Wes starting as a freshman and seniors quitting the team in protest.

His college recruitment, though, took a big hit the summer after his junior year. He contracted mononucleosis and wasn’t able to play up to his standards on the AAU circuit. He really wanted to go to Yale, but its coaching staff changed. By then, it was so late in the process that he didn’t have many options left. The path was diverging again.

There is a stigma attached to postgraduate students (or "PGs") a lot of times. People feel that they couldn’t get into a college, or have a troubled past and need more high school credits.

"I was surprised by the amount of kids that do PGs before colleges," Mark said. "It’s not as uncommon as we thought."

Wes said Peddie has been just the thing he was looking for.

"Obviously it’s hard because your friends are going off to college, but this is a nice transition, there are a lot of things you have to do. They have to rein you in a little bit, but that keeps you focused," said Wes. "I think it’s a nice little side step before going off to college."